Bucking recent downward trends, the
IRS
actually picked up a budget increase
from a hostile Congress. The increase restores part of what was cut from
the agency budget last year and reportedly earmarks it for taxpayer
service, fraud detection, and cybersecurity. Along with the money came a
set of new restrictions on the agency and its employees, most of which seem
to be in the category of “appearing to put the screws to the
IRS
for the benefit of any constituents in the Tea Party who may be
watching.”

With Congressional hostility and budget-slashing added to the mix, the jobs
of IRS
workers are even more miserable than usual lately. It doesn’t help
recruitment when your facilities are infested with bedbugs.

The bed bugs were so bad at her new job with the Covington
IRS
office that some people covered their seats with plastic bags, Kelly
Anderson said.

After two days, she quit.

“It’s important to have a second income in our home, but it’s not worth
the risk of bringing those home. So, I will not be returning back.”

And that’s not the only kind of bug the
IRS
is plagued with. A computer glitch caused the agency to emit tens of
millions of dollars in refunds
that its software had identified as likely to be fraudulent and that should
have been held up.

Owing to the action of the municipal authorities of Valladolid in imposing
certain taxes on hearses, the undertakers of that town have organised a
passive resistance strike, by refusing to send out either hearses or coffins.
The dead have, therefore, to be conveyed to the cemeteries on stretchers,
carried by porters.

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